Other people’s dreams are boring, aren’t they? In direct inverse proportion to how intensely interesting our own are. Don’t worry, I’m not going to detail mine, partly because I can’t remember them in the cold light of the grey January day that is today.
But oh boy. They were vivid. And awful. I do remember at one point wondering how I could endure another second. And then, the big scary twelve headed monster …
… I’m sure I just said I wasn’t going to bother you with them. Ah well, sucks to be you (seems like a troubled night’s sleep makes me a bit meaner than normal. Tetchy, even).
Palahnuik, he of Fight Club fame, advises against dreams in fiction. Stories are already fake, he says, you don’t need another layer of fakeness in them. Neil Gaiman uses them a lot in American Gods, as a portal between the real world and the realm of the Gods, but he’s Neil Gaiman and it’s American Gods, so shaddap, Palahnuik, let the man do his thing.
Shakespeare. He used them too, famously. In the middle of the year, as I recall.
What do you think? To Dream, or not to dream?
(See what I did there?)
Just waving 
To dream! Why not? We all do it, some of us remember them, and they show you your deepest fears and help your mind come to terms with what’s going on with you at any given time. Dreaming is my favorite part of sleeping!
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Mine too until recently. I think it’s the pandemic or the menopause that’s made them turn apocalyptic. Here’s to better dreams for us all!
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You’re right. Mostly they’re boring. They need a clear point and to advance the story somehow. I tend to flick through fictional dreams to the next bit of action. When writing, I mention them only in passing where relevant. Preferably for laughs.
For example, a line from the pocket novel which will be out in April, where Georgia is lusting after a pie salesman who looks like a Viking: “After a fitful night of sweaty dreams in which a Viking tried to lure me into his whirlpool with an enormous sausage roll, I would have preferred crawling into Mike’s and quietly coming to with a couple of mugs of real coffee…”
You see what I did there ;-)Loving the blog.
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I do see what you did! Filth! And funny! Like all the best dreams, in fact.
I flick through too, most times, it’s a tell masquerading as a show, I think? Unless you are Neil Gaiman, in which case it’s a portal to the Other World …
Glad you are enjoying the blog, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge but I am enjoying it too.
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